Pleas dismissed,civic poll dates likely today

“We find nothing wrong with the action of the SEC (State Election Commission) qua the mode and manner of reservation of seats for the SC and the women and,thus,dismiss the writ petitions,leaving the parties to bear their own costs,” the bench said.

The petitions had challenged the SEC’s notification last month in which a list of reserved seats in all the three new municipalities was prepared on the basis of the 2001 Census.

A senior Election Commission official told Newsline soon after the judgment,“We were waiting for the court order on these petitions. Now,we will most likely announce the dates on Thursday.”

In their petitions,the councillors and politicians alleged that the Election Commission made calculations for reservations arbitrarily,and that it was wrong in considering the population of SC in Assembly segments instead of municipal wards.

The result was that certain wards with higher percentage of SC voters had been put in the general category,while others with lesser SC population were in the reserved category,the petitioners claimed.

They argued that the delegation of powers by the Delhi government to the Election Commission to decide on reservation was unconstitutional as it adversely affected the body’s “impartial” status.

But the court found no fault with the method used for determining reservation,observing that the Election Commission had to work with a larger spread of population and a changed formula,given it had to make calculations for three municipalities.

“It is our view that the SEC has carried out a considered exercise,which by no stretch of imagination can be said to be irrational or arbitrary… there are cases where a particular ward having a greater percentage of SC population would have been reserved while another ward having more SC population has not been reserved but that is on account of a changed formula where a larger spread of population has been taken into account,” the bench said.

The court also found nothing wrong in the delegation of power to the Election Commission to reserve wards,saying it did not affect the independent constitutional status enjoyed by the commission.